Free America's Trust by Murray McDonald

move. Hitting hard and fast from all angles simultaneously was their normal plan of attack but without comms it was proving difficult. He had no idea what bullshit equipment they had been supplied with, but he was damn sure going to find the useless fucker that had made it and give him a piece of his mind.
    Despite their high profile and rather unorthodox arrival, surprise was still on their side. It had been a matter of seconds from wheels down to entry and with no resistance in sight, Pyotr felt confident the building would be secure in less than a minute. Although the plan was as far from ideal as perhaps possible, the defense minister had left him no option. They did not have time to plan anything. There was no time to wait for darkness or skydive soundlessly from high altitude, opening their chutes at the very last second. All the hostage rescue situations they planned for were thrown out the window. Their only mission was to uncover the president and prime minister’s situation as a matter of urgency. Time was the critical factor. Get your men in a chopper, fly straight to the castle and storm it. It was that simple, with no room for negotiation. He had tried, but the defense minister had been adamant and, based on how well Pyotr knew him -- which was very well -- he was a very worried man.
    The sound of the backup chopper landing only added to the catastrophic fuck-up that was the most important mission with which he had ever been tasked. Pyotr ignored his backup and pushed on. The ground floor was clear, the second floor likewise. Only the top floor and main bedrooms were still to be cleared. Pyotr signaled to five men and led them up the final set of stairs. None of the men had any comprehension just how critical the next few minutes were in the history of the world. A slaughtered president and prime minister would in all likelihood start a war that would very surely change the world forever.
    Pyotr raised his hand and everyone froze silently. The slow rhythmic beat of a bass drum could be heard through the solid double doors ahead. The first sign of any life was a welcome sound. Pyotr pressed forward and the men prepared themselves to take the room.
    As Pyotr placed his hand on the door handle, the building burst into a cacophony of ringing phones, landlines and cell tones filled the air. Pyotr, like his men, tuned out the ringing and turned the handle. The door opened and swung freely, Pyotr waited for his men to rush past but none moved. They all stood frozen to the spot. Pyotr swung his head to see and gasped. “Oh dear God!”

***
     
    “ We’ve got comms!” screamed the operator a little too loudly at the Defense Minister. When the screen burst into life, Dmitry forgave the outburst.
    “The president’s cell is ringing now!” clamored an intelligence officer, bursting into the room. Her job, like others, was to sit and hit redial continuously until something happened. A chorus of shouts from across the room echoed a similar message, phone lines that hadn’t been connecting suddenly were.
    The helmet camera from the SOS trooper beamed back the images from the castle. They watched in Moscow as the hand moved towards the handle and the momentary look around which was explained as the speakers burst into life, with ringing phone lines at the castle.
    The door began to open on the screen, and the defense minister, who was not a religious man, prayed to God that everything was okay.

***
     
    Former KGB colonel and SVR Officer Sergey Petrovich watched as the SOS troopers neared the head of the stairs. The tiny pinhole camera with a fisheye lens was the only piece of electronic equipment capable of emitting any type of signal through the wall of jammers that he had erected. He watched the trooper’s hand move towards the handle of the president’s master bedroom door, and hit the kill switch. Nothing visibly happened. Not that he expected it to. The jammers were buried around the castle grounds, deep enough